


What Loki Was Doing Around 'Age of Ultron'

by Velvedere



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Some Plot, implied porn, personal headcanon, vision is a precious jewel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3922120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty much what it says. (alternately titled: This Is My Headcanon As Far As Thanos Is Concerned And No One Will Ever Change My Mind)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Loki Was Doing Around 'Age of Ultron'

An old adage claimed that life was lonely at the top.

Perhaps there was some truth to it, but nowhere else had Loki found such a lovely view.

From Hlidskjalf, he could see everything.

Not...literally. Not the way Heimdall saw everything. But the lines of trade that wove in and out of Asgard daily became like rivers, the rise and fall of which among rain and tides he could read. Had learned to predict. The intricate politics of court and kingship became like a game he played idly to one side as he slumped on the throne, half bored with it, paying only enough attention to make sure he won. The weapons’ vault was his to explore on a whim, as was every locked door in the library archives. Every secret chamber.

Even as a prince, Loki had not held such privileges.

Odin had been a crafty one. Keeping all the best secrets for himself. Now Loki reveled in newfound knowledge, and the improved company he kept.

“My king,” Sif announced, dropping to one knee as she and the warriors at her back bowed, crossing one arm over their chests. “We have returned.”

“Rise, and stand welcome.” Loki gestured them up under Odin’s guise, smiling, as a benevolent king would. “I trust by your presence your mission proved successful?” 

“Yes, my king,” Sif said, lifting her head. “We have delivered our charge. It rests now in safe hands.”

“That is wonderful to hear.” Loki waved his hand. “You may now rest easy, knowing your task is done. Go. Refresh yourselves and enjoy banquet. Remember only the secrecy you have sworn.”

Oh, they would remember, for certain. Loki had no doubt secrecy would be kept. Especially once he’d stolen into their thoughts and robbed them of their memories of it.

“Yes, my lord,” said Sif, and the warriors as one bowed and turned away to make their leave, already expressing their desires for drink quite loudly.

Only Sif remained.

Loki arched his brow, and leaned forward in his seat.

“Is there something else, good lady?”

“My king.” Sif nodded her head, bowing once more in deference and apology.

Loki had yet to tire of being bowed to.

“Forgive me, but are you certain that was a wise choice?”

Who she perceived to be Odin just smiled. The warriors of Asgard had found their king in very good humor recently, with a wit they hadn’t known he possessed.

“It was the wisest,” he answered, with a gentle nod of his head. “I do not desire to have more than one infinity stone in any one place. The danger should someone come into possession of too many of them is great.”

“But why not keep them here? They would be safe in Asgard’s vaults.”

“The vaults have been breached before.” There he let his tone darken, his gaze flitting aside for a moment as thoughts turned toward that traitorous son of his.

He did have to keep up appearances, after all.

“But Loki is no longer a threat—”

“There are other threats.” He cut her off, just firm enough to suggest that arguing the matter further would be inadvisable.

Sif pressed her lips together firmly, tipping up her chin in honored obedience.

Just as quickly Loki’s expression softened. Became kind again.

This was what he loved most about the deception. The subtleties. Knowing at what precise moment to lay a firm hand or a gentle word. No one else would have been able to play a more convincing Odin than he.

Rather than focus on the notion of just what that implied, Loki delighted in the fun of it.

“There are other threats,” he repeated, much softer, with a gesture of one hand. “But you needn’t fret, Lady Sif. By doing this, the danger they present is already severely lessened.”

“But can the Collector be trusted?” she asked.

“He can be trusted to act in his own interest, which is the most reliable thing in all the galaxy. After Asgard, his vaults are the most secure. He will keep the Aether safe.”

“But to give it to him freely, without prompt?”

“Then he will also be indebted to us.” Loki smiled. A cold and clever smile. “As I said, you needn’t fret. You did well.”

Sif bowed her head, and knelt again as she crossed one arm over her chest.

“Yes, my king.”

Loki watched her go. He lounged back easily on the throne, the fingers of one hand unconsciously pressing along the smooth gold of one arm rest, feeling the hum of power as it reverberated just beneath the surface.

He tapped his fingers to ease his tension once he realized he was clenching.

To one side, Huginn cawed.

Safely alone, Loki snapped a glare at the raven.

“What?” he sneered. “You have something to add?”

If Odin – the real Odin – had anything to say, he remained silent. Only the raven’s gleaming black eye cocked sideways at him. Then it ruffled its feathers.

“Very well,” Loki grumbled, rubbing a hand along his brow. “Go be with mother.”

Some people simply refused to retire.

There was a twinge in the air. A tightening of energies. Loki frowned and lifted his head as he felt it, eyes narrowed ahead into nothing.

The ravens startled, flapping their wings and pacing restlessly on their perches as they cawed.

Loki sent them away with a wave of his hand.

He stood from the throne, Odin’s spear lifted easily in one hand. He braced it beside him and kept firm hold as he turned his eyes out over the empty throne room, listening to the silence.

His eyes narrowed as he pinpointed the source, and he set his jaw tight. Gripped the spear a little tighter.

He took a breath.

Let his illusion drop.

“My dear Thanos,” Loki spoke boldly, voice carrying through the room’s wide open pillars. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

An image formed from nothing, hovering in the air even above Loki’s head. Loki stood to his full height and tipped up his chin, braced against the sight of the eyes and then the face that materialized there. Haunting and hated and familiar.

“King Loki Odinson,” rumbled the voice. “Or is it Laufeyson? I’m confused. Are you going solely by Odin these days?”

“You deign to speak to me directly?” Loki feigned surprise, not rising to the taunt. “You do me too much honor, Mad Tyrant. Is your faceless lackey no longer up to the task?”

“He’s dead.”

“A shame. Truly.” Loki nodded his head. “I had wanted that pleasure for myself.”

“Enough banter. You know what I want, Asgardian.”

“Do I?” Loki glanced aside, shrugging. “There again, I think you believe too much of me. I seem to have forgotten.”

“Do not play coy.”

“Remind me?” Loki smiled.

“The gauntlet.”

“Oh yes! That’s right. How could I have forgotten that?” He tapped the side of his head. “It must have slipped my mind.”

“I have no time for your games.”

“Truly? It is my understanding you have all the time in the galaxy.”

“Give me the gauntlet, and I will refrain from leveling your newfound kingdom.”

Loki’s smile vanished. He looked to Thanos’ eyes, no hint or flinch of hesitation in his own.

“No,” he said.

The face in the projection shifted only a little, revealing a flash of the firm set of its jaw.

“That was not a request.”

“That was not negotiation.”

“You do not want to test me, boy.”

“Oh, but I do. I do very much.” Loki promptly turned his back on the projection and returned to the throne, sighing luxuriously as he slid down into the seat. Leaned back with his posture spread and easy. Confident. “You see, I’m curious. I’m curious as to why the great Thanos would bother to call a lowly thronestealer like me and even have this conversation. I’m curious as to why he does not simply show up at my door and take what it is he wants. In fact, why has he not done so already?” He leaned his head aside, cheek braced against one fist. “So very curious.”

The face in the projection remained hard.

“The answer is simple,” Thanos rumbled. “When one attempts to take things from a child by force, they resist. They live under the deluded impression that they can win. When they fight back, things tend to get...broken.” A thin smile split his wrinkled purple face. “What is all the power in the cosmos if there are no realms left to rule?”

Loki raised a dubious eyebrow.

“Was that an admission that I am, in fact, a challenge for you?”

“Not in the slightest. Only that you have a penchant for collateral damage.”

“I should think with your obsession with death, killing a few thousand planets would be high on your list of preferences.”

“Yes. But masses are easy. They can be wiped out at any time.”

“Oh, I see.” Loki nodded. “So that is why you had me ferret out the best warriors to stand against you.” He gestured with one hand. “The greater the challenge...”

“...the greater the offering. And you did your task perfectly.” Thanos chuckled. “You still do.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“Please elaborate.”

“The infinity stones. Of all my agents, you have uncovered the most.”

Loki looked taken aback.

“Why, Thanos, was that a compliment?”

“If you wish to perceive it that way.” Thanos’ voice dipped lower as he tilted his eyes down, piercing Loki through with their meaning. “It earns you a place near the top of the altar.”

Loki hummed, non-committal, and glanced aside.

“A shame I’m no longer doing it for you, then,” he said on a wistful sigh. “I do so like to be favored.”

“What makes you think you are not?”

“Mostly the whole of the Nine Realms cursing my name, but that’s a sort of favor in itself.”

“You think you are not still a pawn in this game?”

Thanos chuckled as Loki’s eyes shot back to him, their gleaming edge like that of a dagger.

“No,” he said, steely quiet. “I’m a king.”

“A king who searches for the infinity stones just as I do. Who covets the gauntlet just as I do.” Thanos paused for effect. “When have our interests ever not run parallel?”

Loki remained very still. His thoughts raced ahead of him, but also behind him. Remembering Earth. Remembering the battle over the city. Remembering being smashed into the floor – repeatedly – by an unstoppable green monster, and the clarity that followed. So suddenly different than the haze of hate and rage and purpose that had preceded it. Such things had been so all-consuming of his existence he hadn’t noticed their presence until they was gone.

The humans called it cognitive recalibration.

Thanos chuckled again through Loki’s silence, shaking his head as if in pity.

“Not all control is gained through magic stones,” he said. “You should know that more than most.”

“Forge a new gauntlet,” answered Loki sharply. “You will not set foot here. If anyone is going to burn Asgard to the ground...” There he leaned far forward, bearing his teeth in a grin of feral promise. “It’s going to be me.”

Thanos’ eyes narrowed. Something behind them like resolve.

“Very well, little king. Remember I offered.”

“We’re done.”

Loki shot a beam of energy from Odin’s spear at the apparition, blasting it out of existence.

The last ashes of scorched and twisted magic fluttered down to the polished throne room floor, where they lay still, fluttering only now and again in the whisper of a draft.

Loki sat on Odin’s throne for a long time in quiet, one hand to his lips, thinking.

*****

That evening Loki walked alone along the ramparts and gardens of the citadel.

It seemed an odd thing, that he would be allowed to enjoy such a simple pleasure again, after all that had taken place. In the first few months of his kingship he had done so under a lingering fear. Jumping at every unexpected noise. Startled by the appearance of another Asgardian in a corridor. As if they would somehow see through his disguise instantly, and then they would know.

But the fear passed quickly. Loki grew more and more accustomed to leading this false life.

It was not such a bad thing, if it meant returning to the place he’d once called home.

The walks were restful now. Peaceful. As they should have been.

Save for the thoughts weighing on his mind.

He stopped at a balcony, hands resting on the cool stone and metal of its lining, to pause and look out over a view of the gardens offered below.

The trees were in bloom. Their petals had already half fallen and covered the ground in a light summer snow. More of them filled the air on every breeze as more and more petals grew to replace them, and would do so until the trees bore fruit. Then the process would begin again.

As eternal as all else in Asgard.

It had been one of Frigga’s favorite places.

Loki lowered his gaze with the thought.

Even in Asgard, all was not truly eternal. But such was the way of things.

He clenched his hands over the railing and braced his shoulders against it, his insides clenching down tight.

It was supposed to be simple. The plan...as he’d explained it to Odin...it should have been so _simple_. Odin was ailing and sick and near dying with grief. He was in no state to defend Asgard against what Loki knew was coming. Let him step in. Let him take control. Let him find the rest of the infinity stones before Thanos did and take measures to make sure he didn’t get them. Odin could go rest. Be with Frigga. One day he could return stronger if he so wished and wrest control away from Loki again, but for now, Odin didn’t know their enemy like Loki did.

Or thought he did.

Loki wrenched his face into a scowl as he fought against the doubt creeping into his resolve. It had always been there, he supposed, or else the soil would not have been so ripe to receive Thanos’ seed once it was planted.

He had to _do_ something...

“Father?”

Thor’s voice nearly startled a squawk from him. Loki jerked aside, turned, and straightened to see him just then mounting the steps onto the balcony, just as the sun would rise over a distant horizon.

Loki smiled, his body immediately put at ease.

Another pleasure he could enjoy in his deception...if not truly in the way he wanted.

“Thor.” He gestured him closer. “I’m sorry, I...I did not hear your approach.”

“Are you well, father?” Thor drew near and reached for him, worry creasing his brow.

“Well enough for an old man.” Loki laughed and took his hand, squeezing it tight. Any excuse to touch him. “Heimdall did not tell me you had returned.”

They embraced. Warm. Familial. A moment longer than was absolutely necessary.

“I only just arrived.” Thor held his wrists at arm’s length. “And I have much to tell you.”

“Of happenings on Earth?”

Thor nodded.

Loki returned it.

“I want to hear everything,” he said, and gestured down to the gardens. “Will you walk with me?”

“Of course.”

They smiled together, and they walked together, down the stone steps and into the flower petals spun about on the whim of the breeze. As soft as Frigga’s caress.

It was lonely at the top, Loki decided, walking along at Thor’s side. Slow. In no greater hurry than the sun’s descent caused them to be.

But it was not always so.

*****

That night, after feasting and revelry in one of Asgard’s many great halls, when all but the late watch lay asleep, Loki stole away from his chambers under the cover of darkness. He wore a deep green cloak lined with gold runes, crafted and enspelled specifically with stealth in mind. Pulled close around his shoulders, he could pass unseen wherever he pleased. (His initial tests of its effectiveness had involved running circles around Heimdall while shouting at him to see if he noticed. He didn’t.)

He slipped through halls and corridors, leaving no trace of his passage, until he reached the chambers where Thor slept.

Having now free reign of Asgard’s grounds and Thor being gone so often on his spurts of Avenging gave Loki all the time he required to weave spells and enchantments throughout Thor’s rooms. (Indeed, throughout much of the citadel.) One such spell allowed him a way to enter without the use of a door or window.

He materialized from the shadows instead, coalescing from the darkness itself near Thor’s bed.

Thor lay sprawled across the blankets and furs and pillows, snoring heavily. Naked save for the twist of cloth covering his waist and thighs.

Loki smiled as his gaze fell upon him, eyes soft with affection.

Thor had always been beautiful, but particularly in moments such as this: when he was at rest and moonlight from the open windows fell across his skin. Silver shades differing but no less complimentary than the golden hue cast upon him by a fire’s warm light. All the long, hard lines of him were at ease. A peacefulness far removed from the bulged, bludgeoning stance of a body tense in the midst of battle.

Though seeing Thor that way was quite lovely, too.

Loki sat down on the bedside, pulling down the hood of his cloak. He watched his brother: the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the light bob in his throat as it tensed, perhaps in the midst of a dream. The way the lashes of his eyes feathered against his skin, fluttering only a little as his brow furrowed, and he turned his head aside to shift without waking.

Loki slid off the rest of his cloak.

He wore only a light robe beneath, and moved his weight upon the bed that it would dip beneath him. Register his presence.

He reached out, and gently – with feather-softness – brushed Thor’s hair back from his face. He hummed a song low in his throat. A song Thor would remember from youth, when their mother used to sing it to them to lull them to sleep.

The shadows around them thickened. Shut out the world. Currents of darkness and what moonlight remained swirled in the black, echoing Loki’s song and adopting its soft chorus.

Thor’s eyes fluttered, waking slowly. His lips parted and he gasped, a beautiful, naked sound of desire where wakefulness had not yet robbed it of its boyish sincerity.

Tension gripped his body, and he turned to look up.

“Loki,” he breathed out his name, half lost.

Loki smiled. Small. Sober. The way he used to.

“Hello, brother.”

“You’re... What is...is this...?” Thor looked around them, pushing himself up onto his arms for better vantage.

Loki made a soft shushing noise, and touched Thor’s lips with his fingers, tracing the line of them where they parted.

“This is a dream,” he said. Both their voices echoed strangely in the dark. “Only a dream.”

“A dream?” Thor frowned. Even without magic, Loki could guess where his thoughts ventured.

He was having an awful lot of dreams like these as of late.

Most often Loki came to him as a pale and desiccated apparition; a ghost to torment Thor in a supposed nightmare for leaving him behind on Svartalfheim. It was not enough he had to die, but he would be denied a proper funeral pyre, left to rot on a cold world of shifting black sand.

Thor’s tears and how he wept for Loki in those moments, mewling his whimpered apologies over and over, stabbed at Loki’s cold heart. But not enough to make him stop.

In those supposed nightmares he pushed Thor down and found ways for him to atone. Dark, sinful acts while Thor begged for forgiveness. While Loki made him earn it.

More often of late, however, Loki came to him like this: as himself. Calm and without fury. No desire or aim other than to spend a night in his brother’s arms. And, sometimes, to pass on crucial information planted into Thor’s subconscious, which he would only recall in later waking hours.

And now and then a means of interrogation.

“Yes,” said Loki, reaching out to brush his cheek. “Only a dream.”

“It feels very real to be a dream.”

“Dreams are real, as they happen.” Loki cupped Thor’s cheek in his hand. “It is only later we recognize them for what they are.”

“Loki...”

Loki slid his hands beneath the rough scratch of Thor’s beard along his jaw, holding him with thumbs over his cheeks as he leaned in to kiss.

Here, there was always hesitation on Thor’s part. Always a moment of debate, as if he warred within himself about the rightness of it. Resisting despite his gasp as Loki’s lips first touched his, a jolt electric sparked between them. Wavering on indecision even as Loki closed his eyes, moaned deep in his throat.

And, just as inevitably, Thor submitted.

Every time.

His eyes closed and his arms rose up and around Loki and he seized him with a fierce tenderness, holding him tight with one hand in his hair as resistance collapsed and they fell into each other. Loki spread his hands across Thor’s chest hard enough to indent the skin and pushed him down, claiming his mouth while Thor whimpered and held on.

“I am sorry, Loki,” Thor gasped as they parted. Near-sobbing. Hand clenching in his hair. “I am so sorry...”

This was also common.

“I couldn’t save mother...I couldn’t save you...”

“Shh.” Loki touched his lips and tasted him again. A deep, possessive kiss as he slid his tongue behind Thor’s teeth. “Do not dwell on such things. I am here.”

He slid his hand around Thor’s throat, pressing firm enough to feel his rapid pulse. He looked to his eyes, the tears already forming within them crystalline in the dim light. The part of his lips as he breathed, deep and labored, drawing Loki always to kiss them again. Just once more. Down to the pale dip of his soft throat.

“I wish to make love to you tonight, brother,” he whispered, and traced one finger down his chest. “Let me take these dark thoughts from your mind.”

_“Loki...”_

Loki sat up, briefly drawing away from him. Thor remained propped on his elbows with the bed’s pillows at his back as he watched, slack-jawed in mesmerized wonder, as Loki tugged at the tie holding his robe in place. It parted, creating a long line of pale skin revealed down his front, before unwinding from him like a living thing, pooling away into a silent heap on the floor.

Then Loki leaned over him, hiding nothing of himself, to smile and watch Thor’s eyes as they roved, darkened with a shameless, growing hunger.

“Will you let me?” he whispered.

Thor could only answer with an awestruck nod, gaze returning to meet Loki at his eyes.

Loki smiled, and kissed him, taking him down to the bed once more.

*****

Loki dressed himself as dawn crept into the sky’s distant horizon, leaving a parting kiss touched gently to Thor’s temple. Careful not to wake him from the heavy sleep into which he’d fallen. The bed lay amess and Thor sprawled on his stomach in a heap of tangled furs and pillows, a sheen of sweat and the heady scent of sex clinging to his body. The spell Loki whispered in his ear would blur the memory of their encounter upon his waking, making the night seem little more than a half-remembered dream.

Loki adjusted the cloak about his shoulders and slipped out through the still-empty corridors of the citadel, intent upon returning to Odin’s chambers and resuming his guise for another day of ruling.

Another perk of his recent kingship: taking on Odin’s rooms for his own. So much more shelf space.

Loki smiled to himself, his heart and spirits light, when a voice hailed him across the empty hall.

“Hello.”

Loki nearly stumbled in how quickly he spun, a dagger summoned instantly into his hand.

He stared at the being before him, his eyes wide in a moment’s naked shock.

The being – presumably a he, though how could anyone be sure of these things – hovered just slightly above the polished floor, standing aside near the entrance to an alcove, skin like burgundy with a cape of golden filament that drifted in a nonexistent breeze.

It looked directly at Loki with a passive gaze, though Loki scowled in return.

“What...are you?” he bristled as he recovered himself.

This was no Asgardian Loki looked upon. Nor any human. Loki didn’t know right away what it was, only that it felt vaguely of...

Internally Loki twitched, his brow furrowing deep.

It felt vaguely of Thor.

“What am I?” it echoed, with a small frown and shift of its gaze inward. “That is...a complicated question. I’m not certain what I am, beyond what I have been told and base material components.”

“Very well,” spoke Loki carefully. “ _Who_ are you?”

“The others have taken to calling me Vision.”

“What is it you want?”

“Nothing in particular.” The being tilted its head. “I wanted to say hello.”

“Why have you come here?”

“Thor invited me.”

Loki eyed the being up and down. The voice struck a familiar chord, though he could not quite place it. He did not sense any immediate deception on the being’s part, in its answers or mannerisms, but rather a bare-faced honesty that called to mind Thor once again.

Very curious.

So this was the Vision of which Thor had spoken.

“Well then,” said Loki, easing some of the tension in his posture as he continued to scrutinize the stranger. He tipped his head forward. “Hello.”

The being returned the gesture, and that was when Loki saw it.

A spark of something else familiar. Something much, much more familiar. Mounted there in the being’s forehead.

Something inside Loki snapped.

He lunged forward, grabbing the being by its throat and slamming it into the nearest wall. There he held it, teeth bared as he pressed the dagger’s blade against its neck.

“You must be Loki,” it said, still conversational, as it offered no resistance.

Loki breathed through his teeth, hitched a breath, and blinked, coming somewhat back to himself. He did not let go. Instead tightened his grip on the dagger

Thor had told him. When they walked together with himself as Odin, Thor had told him of what transpired concerning the mind gem. But Loki had not expected...

“Thor has spoken of you,” the being went on, seemingly oblivious to the murderous intent raging behind Loki’s eyes. “But only in the past tense, and with some sadness. I had formed the impression you were dead.”

“I...am. Was.” Loki shook his head, breathing deep. “That is...Thor believes me to be. I would very much like to keep it that way.”

“Why?”

“It would...cause him a great deal of distress to know otherwise.”

The being frowned, the first signs of concern flitting across his almost metallic expression.

“It would cause him pain?” it said softly.

Loki’s eyes darted to the floor. He found some grounding there.

“Yes.”

“Then I will refrain from telling him.”

“Well, at least you’re reasonable.” Loki took the dagger from its throat and stepped away, pretending to brush down wrinkles and imaginary dust from his cloak. “I apologize for that. I confess...you caught me rather by surprise.”

His eyes flickered up beneath a fall of hair to settle on the stone. It gleamed there in all feigned innocence, the quiet hum of its power like a taunt.

“I am sorry,” said the being. “That was not my intention.”

“All is forgiven.” Loki put his dagger away. “Rather rude of Thor, to invite you here and then leave you alone, wandering the halls.”

“I do not believe he is aware I have arrived. He instructed me to visit at my leisure, and I do not sleep.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since shortly before sunset. I have been exploring the grounds and speaking with your gatekeeper. This place is quite beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Loki narrowed his eyes. “How long have you been here...in this corridor?”

“Only since I realized this was close to Thor’s dwelling. I thought I would wait for him.”

“Then...you heard...?”

“Only what made it through the walls.”

“O-Oh...”

If the being thought this strange, he made no show of it.

“I did not wish to disturb him. Thor seemed fully occupied.”

“Indeed he was,” Loki murmured under his breath. He shook his head, and straightened, adopting a more formal posture. “Well, allow me to not be so rude a host. If you would like a more proper tour of the grounds, I would be happy to provide.”

The being smiled, and nodded. His feet touched down to the floor.

“I would like that very much.”

“And I would very much like to know more about you.” Loki reached for his shoulder as if to turn and usher him away down the corridor, though he refrained from actually touching him again. The stone’s power burned from the being’s very skin. Loki could feel it like heat against his palm. “Right this way.”

They moved away together, two silhouettes small in a corridor of growing light.


End file.
